Earth History and Global Change

GEOL-1122 Fall 2009

Practice for Lecture Test #1

"Time present and time past are both perhaps present in time future and

time future contained in time past" (T.S. Elliot)

Name_______________________________

Part I ‑ Multiple Choice (50 pts. ‑ 2 pts. each question)

**Circle the letter of the correct answer.

1) The archbishop that determined the age of the Earth to be 6,000 years based on the number of generations and predictions in the bible was:

a) Charles Darwin

b) John Hutton

c) Jean Baptiste de Lamarck

d) James Ussher

2) The invention of accurate and affordable time-keeping devices resulted in:

a) More structured human social behavior

b) Better historical records

c) Increased human intelligence

d) Discovery of earth’s axial rotation

3) Then idea of circular time was proposed and taught by which group?

a) Ancient Mayans

b) Early Christian leaders

c) Earliest time travelers

d) All of the above

4) Which of the following statements concerning unconformities is correct?

a) They always represent a break in the geologic record.

b) They are usually laterally extensive. (ie. They occur over a large area.)

c) Sedimentary rocks are not always found on both sides of the unconformity surface.

d) All of the above

5) If a fault cuts across a conglomerate that contains pebbles of granite and sandstone, which of the following is the youngest geologic event?

a) Formation of the conglomerate

b) Intrusion of the granite

c) Formation of the fault

d) Deposition of the sandstone

6) Which of the following principles of stratigraphy is commonly used to determine the relative ages of layered sedimentary rocks?

a) Law of Succession

b) Superposition

c) Law of Inclusions

d) Law of Cross-Cutting Relationships

7) Isotopes are atoms with:

a) Same atomic mass but different atomic number

b) Same number of electrons

c) Same number of neutrons but different number of protons

d) Same number of protons but different number of neutrons

8) Which of the following occurs during beta decay.

a) A neutron is converted to a proton as a negative charge is lost from the nucleus.

b) A proton is converted to a neutron as an electron is pulled into the nucleus.

c) Two protons and neutrons are lost from the nucleus.

d) An electron is lost from the outer shell of the atom.

9) Which of the following materials is commonly used in radiometric age dating?

a) Igneous rocks

b) High-grade metamorphic rocks

c) Organic material

d) All of the above

10) How much parent material of an isotope would remain if 4 half lives had passed?

a) 25%

b) 12.5%

c) 6.25%

d) 3.125%

11) Which of the following is the best age estimate for a rock that contains an isotope with a half-life of 1.5 million years and only 12.5% of the parent material is present?

a) 3.0 million years old

b) 4.5 million years old

c) 6.0 million years old

d) 9.0 million years old

12) Which of the following is a required characteristic for a marker or key bed?

a) Limited extent

b) Easily recognized

c) Igneous origin

d) All of the above

13) Which of the following is the most important technique used to map and correlate subsurface sediments and rock units in oceanic areas?

a) Fossil data

b) Rock composition

c) Seismic data

d) Radiometric data

14) Which of the following information can be derived from the fossil record?

a) Ancient environmental conditions

b) Relative age

c) Evolutionary change

d) All of the above

15) In which of the following environments would fossilization most likely occur?

a) Desert

b) Deep marine

c) Desert lake

d) River channel

16) Which of the following is a biasing factor that causes the fossil record to show a greater increase in diversity towards the recent than actually occurred?

a) Increase in the rock record with increasing age

b) Selective preservation of only limited living materials

c) Sampling problems that result in a much greater amount of published research on the older and more deeply buried fossils.

d) All of the above

17) Which of the following is not used as evidence of evolution?

a) Increase in complexity in the fossil record with decreasing age

b) Well-preserved transitions in the evolutionary stages of some organisms

c) Disappearance of several species through geologic time

d) Presence of complex fossil organisms in the oldest rocks

18) Which of the following is an example of permineralization?

a) A mold of a snail shell

b) Petrified wood

c) A carbon film and imprint of a leaf in a mudstone

d) All of the above

19) Which of the following are examples of homologous structures?

a) Insect wing and bird wing

b) Bat wing and whale flipper

c) Horse hoof and elephant tusk

d) All of the above

20) A group of similar organisms that can naturally interbreed and produce fertile offspring

are called:

a) Species

b) Taxonomic lineage

c) Fossil assemblage

d) Reproductive cluster

21) Which of the following would increase the number of mutations in a population?

a) Exposure to radiation

b) Changes in food supplies

c) Sexual reproduction in the daylight

d) All of the above

22) Which of the following is a group of animals that display a well-preserved transition in

the fossil record relative to leg length and foot structure?

a) Horses

b) Beavers

c) Alligators

d) All of the above

23) Which of the following statements concerning fossil assemblages is correct?

a) They are groups of index fossils that better constrain rock ages.

b) They are the complete fossilized remains of an extinct organism.

c) They are multiple samples of the same fossil organism in a single rock unit.

d) They are the finger and toe bones of large fossilized organisms.

24) Recessive genetic traits will be seen in the offspring of a breeding pair if:

a) Each parent carries at least one gene for the recessive trait.

b) Only one parent carries the gene for the recessive trait.

c) One parent displays the recessive trait.

d) Both parents display the dominant trait.

25) Which of the following is an example of convergent evolution?

a) Bats, birds and butterflies

b) Whales, humans and bats

c) Dogs, cows and alligators

d) Fish, birds and alligators

Part II ‑ Fill in the Blank (50 pts. ‑ 2 pts. each question)

26) Explain why the early estimates of Earth’s age based on geologic processes produced ages that were more variable and younger than modern radiometric techniques. ____________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

27) The Principle of ____________________ that states 'in an undisturbed sedimentary sequence, the oldest units are found at the base and they become progressively younger towards the top'.

28) The Law of Fossil Succession allows geologists to use fossils in the correlation and relative age dating of rock units in the substudy of stratigraphy called ______________.

29-30) List the four most important characteristics of an index or guide fossil.

a) _______________________________________

b) _______________________________________

c) _______________________________________

d) _______________________________________

31) A type of unconformity where flat-lying sedimentary rocks are found on top of much older metamorphic rocks called a/an _____________________________.

32) A type of radioactive decay in which a dense, high-velocity particle consisting of 2 neutrons and 2 protons is ejected from the nucleus is called _______________ decay.

33) What is the age of a lava flow that has an isotope with a half-life of 2.5 million years, parent material = 6.25% and daughter material = 93.75%? ______________ (list units)

34) How old is a rock if it contains 87.5% daughter material of an isotope with a half-life of 5 million years? _______________________ (list units)

35) The most common radiometric techniques used to date organic material is the ________________________ technique.

36) The geologic era which marks the period of recent life forms (especially mammals) is the _________________ Era.

37-38) Name the five major kingdoms used in the modern version of the Linnaean Classification System. ______________, ______________, _______________, _______________ and ______________.

39) In contrast to Natural Selection, _______________ selection is the process where humans select characteristics of plants and animals that will be passed on to future generations.

40) _________________ is an example of a vestigial structure in humans, while ________________ is a vestigial structure in whales.

41-42) Explain how Hitler misinterpreted the theory of Natural Selection. ________________________________________________________________________________

43) The mechanism proposed by Lamarck that was supposedly responsible for variation or change in subsequent generations was ____________________________________

44) The total disappearance of all living members of a species is called _______________.

45-46) Define and give an example of analogous structures. ___________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________

47-48) The study of the distribution of ancient life forms is called _____________________. Explain how it is used to support the theory of evolution. _________________________

______________________________________________________________________

49-50) Slow and systematic evolutionary change as predicted by the theory of evolution is called _____________________________. In contrast, rapid evolutionary change driven by major changes in the environment is called __________________________.

Extra Credit (2 points): A diagram that shows the proposed evolutionary ancestors and relationships of several species is called a/an ___________________.